Pulp, Duisburg, Germany
28th March 2011
Alphaville
ALPHAVILLE are known by early and worldwide successes with songs like ‘Big in Japan’ and most notably ‘Forever Young’. That, however, was just the tip of the iceberg of what the project was able to achieve. They were destined to push their own boundaries after the success was subsiding a bit. At least for a few people that is much more important than riding on a wave of commercial success forever! So it came to pass that with ‘The Breathtaking Blue’ from 1989 the stylistic repertoire was expanded with currents of Blues, Classical music or Jazz, an evolution that continued with the release of the follow-up ‘Prostitute’ in 1994. Following their ‘Salvation’ it got awfully quiet around them, but suddenly in 2010, ALPHAVILLE were back with a band and the new album ‘Catching Rays On Giant’.
Music & Performance
Old heroes back in track. That was reason enough for plenty of people to stream towards Duisburg on Monday evening, where ALPHAVILLE; after a short waiting period, would enter the stage to an expectant audience who got blessed with a song off the new record ‘End Of The World’. Marian Gold had hardly entered the stage as the enthusiasm of the fans broke way. I should’ve said danced on stage since that would be more appropriate. The man brought energy and verve on stage while performing, the big gestures coming in with ‘Call Me (When I Make It)’ in line with a heavy rock star movement. The audience was infected right away and danced to the new material ecstatically, at least some of them did. For the fourth track the band had a ‘Gravitation Breakdown’ for us, a track sounding very organic regardless of the strong electronic influences. ‘Carry Your Flag’ was announced as dedicated and written for the fans for their unending faith and keeping with the band over all those years. The following performance expectedly was more emotionally charged than anything.
If there was one prime singing discipline for Marian Gold it was the field of ballads where he could score. Let’s take ‘Deep’ for an example with the dense melodies adding even more depth to the vocals and several comments were coming out of the audience, saying they’ve got thick goose bumps. The official permission for drinking alcohol in front of the audience was given with the official ALPHAVILLE “Drinking song” ‘Iron John’ having an Irish spirit indeed. More than anything, however, the people were waiting for a few of the real old material and were more than excited to hear the first notes of ‘Sounds Like A Melody’, truly a rocking anthem with the live treatment. But it was nothing compared to when the melody of the everlasting hit ‘Forever Young’ sounded and everyone cracked up completely and was eager to sing the chorus as loud as they could when it was time. This was the end already of the little set which had to be complemented by an encore of course, having in stock the originally German version of ‘Seeds’, titled ‘Leben ohne Ende’, as well as a lyrically updated version of ‘Big in Japan’ to suit the current situation over there.
After ‘Apollo’ took the audience to the stars it actually meant the end of the concert, but the people were still hungry for more and for one more song Marian and Martin came back to deliver ‘Dance With Me’ just with piano and vocals, and a bit of philosophizing about this and that. Definitely a great show and judging by other people’s faces I wasn’t the only one thinking like that.
Setlist
01. End Of The World
02. Call Me (When I Make It)
03. Dance With Me
04. Gravitation Breakdown
05. Heaven On Earth
06. Carry Your Flag
07. Call Me Down
08. Die For You
09. Jet Set
10. Song For No One
11. Guardian Angel
12. Golden Feeling
13. Monkey
14. The Deep
15. Iron John
16. Victory
17. Sounds Like A Melody
18. Forever Young
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19. Leben ohne Ende (Seeds)
20. Big In Japan
21. Apollo
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22. Dance With Me (Acoustic)
Rating
Music: 8
Performance: 8
Sound: 8
Light: 8
Total: 8 / 10
All pictures by Daniela Vorndran (http://www.vorndranphotography.com / http://www.black-cat-net.de/ / www.myspace.com/vorndranphotography / www.facebook.com/blackcatnet)
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